In each of the foregoing applications, electrical switches are assembled on a plate of the vehicle's instrument panel or on the control housing of the machine tool, each switch includes at least one switching element of the microswitch type attached by soldering to a printed circuit board fixed to the plate behind and parallel to it, and the switching element ensures a desired and specific function, for example, a switch or reversing switch for the electronics installed on the printed circuit board. The electrical switch also includes a housing for the rocker controlling the switching element, which penetrates the instrument panel plate and is fixed to, that is to say, forms a single piece with, the switching element, the rocker being accessible externally so that an operator can control the switching element.
This known switching device has the drawback that it permanently fixes the determined electrical switching function of each switching element and control housing set, and therefore does not allow a certain flexibility in altering such a function except by having to unsolder this set from the printed circuit board to replace it with a different set, which is often tricky to do. For example, in the case of a truck instrument panel with several electrical switches controlling various truck equipment, the electrical functions accomplished by some of these switches must be changed in an evolving fashion so that the switch can accomplish not only the electrical function assigned to it, but also a supplementary electrical function. Such would be the case, for example, for an electrical switch originally intended to control the truck low beams and which could also be used thereafter to control fog lamps not originally present. In this case, it is currently necessary to replace the switch set completely, after unsoldering it, with another switch intended to accomplish this new supplementary function by resoldering it onto the printed circuit board and rewiring it to the fog lights.